Bulwark Dynamics has raised $6.8 million in seed funding to develop and produce its Caravel series of autonomous landing craft, alongside a new partnership with Japan’s Onomichi Dockyard for serial production.
The US-based company is developing the Caravel as an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) for transporting cargo to shore without requiring a port, pier or crane. The vessels are designed to transit to an unimproved shoreline, discharge cargo and retract from the beach autonomously, including in GPS-denied environments.
Bulwark demonstrated the complete mission sequence with a Caravel 15 prototype in early 2026, covering unmanned transit, beaching, cargo offload and retraction without human intervention.
The company is also developing 35-foot and 55-foot variants, designed to carry one and two twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of containerised cargo respectively. The vessels share major components across the series, with the company targeting production at scale.
Under the memorandum of understanding with Onomichi Dockyard, which is also one of the new investors, the two companies will work together to build Caravel vessels in Japan, using the existing shipyard while also considering a dedicated site for serial production of unmanned vessels.
